[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 24303]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    VOTE NO ON $87 BILLION FOR IRAQ

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I am here to do a public service 
announcement. I want all of you to get your rubber stamp ready. We are 
here for 24 hours this week, and next week, when we arrive on 
Wednesday, within 24 hours we will have given the President $87 
billion. That is what he wants in a failed policy. We are going to buy 
cell phones at $6,000 a copy. The ones we have here cost $1,500. Why 
are they $6,000 in Iraq? Why are we spending $100 million in a witness 
protection program or putting in a 911 system or all the foolishness in 
that bill?
  There will be no talk tomorrow about amendments in the Committee on 
Appropriations. We ought to figure out what the President needs until 
December and give it to him then, and we will come back when he has a 
plan.
  He announced today they are not going to go for a resolution in the 
United Nations. We are going it alone, and the American taxpayers are 
being asked to suck it up again, give him $87 billion, do not ask him 
what he did with it, just rubber stamp it. That is wrong. Just vote no.

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